6 February 2020

To celebrate the 75 years of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), we held our first speech and language therapy (SLT) networking day, which was attended by almost 20 per cent of our entire SLT workforce on Thursday 30 January 2020.

Chair, Dot Griffiths said:

“What you (SLTs) do is very important. We employ so many speech and language therapists so a networking day like today is important. This can help provide an interesting range of career opportunities and lots of spaces to do different things.”

Led by our Head of Speech and Language Therapy, Toria Kilsby, the day was about sharing SLT projects and service updates amongst our SLTs based across London and beyond, including Hillingdon, Milton Keynes, Ealing and Brent.

Toria said:

“We have 200 speech and language therapists in our Trust and many of us have niche roles in our clinical fields, so today is a great opportunity to connect up with colleagues across the Trust. We can identity new clinical networks and learning opportunities, as well as determining which awareness days and campaigns we could work on collectively.”

Joining our CNWL SLTs were staff from the RCSLTs professional development team to advise about resources, support and opportunities available through RCSLT.

Catherine Harris, SLT and Coordinator of the Communication Access UK project on behalf of RCSLT also led an inspiring workshop about promoting inclusive communication for all.

Ryan Kemp, Director of Therapies away at Arab Health, said the following in a pre-recorded message:

“One of the things that always impress me about speech and language therapy is the absolute breadth of things that get done, from children to adults, in different settings.

Speech and language therapy is a quiet and brilliantly efficient profession that does so well that unfortunately it becomes slightly invisible. Today, I want you to raise the visibility of the profession, be proud and loud!”